Gov. Matt Bevin has finally responded to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments bragging about harassing and groping women with impunity. The governor criticized the Republican presidential candidate and also those who consume “the very same type of trash in movies and music and video games.”
During an appearance on Terry Meiners' WHAS radio show on Tuesday, Bevin said Trump’s comments were foul, vulgar and “shouldn’t have any place in public discourse." But, he said, many people who were outraged by the comments are hypocritical.
“The same hypocrites that are supposedly outraged and offended by this are the very same people that I guarantee you were first in line to go watch 'Fifty Shades of Grey' to see if it was as trashy as the book they’d read,” Bevin said in the interview.
“They probably listened to rap music on their way home to go play 'Grand Theft Auto' with their kids and be encouraged to take other equally vulgar actions in language," he said. "It’s the hypocrisy of it that I’m offended by.”
Bevin’s office never responded to a request for comment on Trump’s comments after they came to light in early October.
Sen. Mitch McConnell called Trump’s comments “repugnant and unacceptable in any circumstance.”
The New York businessman’s words were criticized by many other Kentucky Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul, though they didn’t withdraw support for their candidate. Trump was also widely condemned by Democrats in the state.
Trump is expected to handily win Kentucky’s eight electoral votes on Election Day next week, and state political observers are waiting to see whether his popularity will trickle down the ballot to state House of Representatives races.
During the interview on WHAS, Bevin also accused Democrats of making desperate attempts to hold onto their majority in the House.
“We’re about to take this House, the leadership of this state is going to change, it’s not going to look back. And they know that and they’re desperate and they’re whipping everything at the wall right now while they can,” Bevin said.
Republicans are hoping to secure a majority of seats in the House for the first time since 1921. They need to net four more seats to do so.
Earlier this fall, Democratic House Speaker Greg Stumbo launched an investigatory committee to look into accusations that Bevin froze a road project in a Democratic lawmaker’s district as retribution for not switching political parties.
Bevin says the project was frozen because the proper right-of-way hadn’t been obtained for construction to begin and that the previous administration rushed to approve it before leaving office.